15 | Celestia Ludenberg

Gender Female Female Height 164 cm Weight 101 lbs Birth Date ♐ November 23 Family Grand Bois Chéri Ludenberg (Pet cat) French father & German mother. Affiliation Hope's Peak Academy Class 78th Celestia was a notorious liar, so it is difficult to determine what, if any, of her self-reported life prior to the Killing Game is fact. By all accounts, it seems she was given the given name Taeko Yasuhiro and born into a likely working-class family in the capital of Tochigi Prefecture, Utsunomiya where she came to love its most famous food, gyoza. As mentioned in Danganronpa Kirigiri, Celestia had been a gambler for at least 4 years before becoming a student in Hope's Peak Academy. She has defeated many known gamblers including Ryou Ooba (a former gambler), which caused him to completely give it up. Ryou described her as crushing him in no time at all, and leaving as quickly as she came. Celestia had a cat named Grand Bois Chéri Ludenberg whom she spoiled and loved dearly. She taught him to enjoy eating gyoza and made it his favorite food, an example of their close bond. Grand Bois became a captive for Monokuma's first motive during the Killing School Life, which revealed that he meant more to Celestia than any possible living relatives. Celestia loathed her true self and the common world she was born into, considering her given name of Taeko Yasuhiro a "loser's name", and so sometime during her childhood, Celestia retreated into an obsession with European royalty - particularly of the Victorian and Rococo period and European historical figures like Marie Antoinette. To make her life appear more glamorous, she took on the European-sounding name "Celestia Ludenberg" and concocted a fictional backstory for herself in which her father was a member of the French nobility, and her mother was a member of a German family of musicians. She began adopting a fake ambiguous European accent and wearing and designing her own well-known line of lolita fashion.

Her ultimate dream in life was to own and live in a European castle filled with handsome male servants dressed as vampires, and this dream is what led her into the world of gambling in order to raise the significant amount of money she would need.

As a person adept at lying, she became extremely successful in the underground gambling scene, able to even win games she had never played before simply on the strength of her ability to deceive and manipulate the other players. In Japan, gambling is illegal and largely controlled by the Yakuza, so Celestia frequently put her life at risk by playing against and defeating dangerous individuals to win the large sums of money she was chasing, particularly as an underage young girl. Despite these genuinely dangerous experiences, even in recounting the events to others she was prone to exaggeration, and instead of telling the real story would recount the stories of well-known gambling fiction such as Liar Game, Akagi, and 81diver, inserting herself into the fictional narratives as if they were real. Her rise to notoriety within the gambling scene brought her to the attention of Hope's Peak Academy scout Koichi Kizakura, leading to Celestia being chosen to enroll in the 78th Class as the Ultimate Gambler. The reason Celestia agreed to enroll in the 78th Class was the urge to achieve even more notoriety and success so she could quickly actualize her dream of becoming something like royalty herself. In one photo recovered by Makoto, Celestia is shown playfully attacking Hifumi Yamada. Little else is revealed about her relationships with the other members of the 78th Class, but it's hinted that Celestia had at least a few friends. During The Tragedy, Jin Kirigiri, the Headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy, planned to seal the school building and let the students live forever inside the Academy. This was a misguided attempt to save humanity's final fragments of hope; Jin planned for the remaining students to help rebuild the world. The students of Class 78th agreed to his plan and sealed themselves inside the academy. Celestia was seen casually drinking tea while her classmates hurried to seal the doors.

The students lived peacefully inside the building for a year without knowing that the Ultimate Despair was planning to destroy them.

Celestia was among over a dozen exceptional students chosen for Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th. In the Killing School Life, she and her classmates ended up trapped inside the school. Due to Junko's memory wiping, everyone was unaware that they had already spent two years together prior to The Tragedy. When Makoto Naegi introduced himself, he immediately questioned Celestia's name and identity. She reassured him that "Celestia" was indeed her real name. Makoto recalled reading a thread online that described her as a top gambler and an expert of deception, so he remained suspicious. Shortly thereafter, the students were forced to participate in the mutual killing game. The first motive to murder were DVDs with a video from Monokuma that implied their loved ones were in danger. Celestia's video showed her most beloved relative was her cat, Grand Bois Chéri Ludenberg. After the students found out that there no way to escape Hope's Peak Academy on the first floor, Celestia sweetly suggested that they simply adapt to their new lives to prevent anyone from getting hurt. Taking leadership over the group, she decreed that no one should be allowed to go out of their dormitory at nighttime, which wasn't specified in the student handbook. Everyone agreed to comply with Celestia's rule to lower the odds of someone getting killed. After the death of Mukuro Ikusaba disguised as Junko Enoshima, Celestia callously stated that those unwilling to adapt deserve to die. This showed she had no mercy for those who refused to follow the school rules, and that her empathy was lacking.

However, Chihiro's tracksuit color was not specified by Celestia during her testimony, and she was then able to reveal after that it was in fact blue.

Following the events of the first Class Trial, the class convened in the Dining Hall in the morning to devise a plan of action. Celestia explained that the killing game was incredibly intricate and that the mastermind must be extremely powerful to create technology as advanced as Monokuma and take over Hope's Peak Academy. Monokuma interrupted to tell them that other areas of the school were now open to explore, and so Celestia, along with the remainder of the class, started the search. However, they couldn't find an exit on the second floor. Once again, Celestia was cool-headed and nonchalant, stating that she enjoyed their newfound freedom and that the occasional class trial wasn't so bad. The next morning, the class had their usual meeting in the Dining Hall. Celestia announced that she was thirsty and demanded milk tea from Hifumi. He hurried to bring her the tea, but she lost her temper when he failed to make it correctly. She shouted at him that he had added the milk after the brewing process instead of during it, which wasn't what she preferred. Celestia forced him to make it again, and the other students were shocked by this aggressive side of her personality. After Chihiro Fujisaki's murder, and during the following class trial, Celestia was able to play a part in revealing Mondo Owada as the culprit, having encountered Chihiro in the storage room prior to his death. During their encounter, Celestia noticed Chihiro was holding a duffle bag with a blue tracksuit partially hanging out, which he stuffed back inside before going off in a hurry so she wouldn't be able to notice. Kyoko Kirigiri was able to force a slip of the tongue from Mondo, when explaining that Chihiro had picked out a tracksuit that matched the culprit's. Mondo became concerned and stated having a black tracksuit rather than Chihiro's blue tracksuit.

After Mondo's execution, Monokuma revealed his next motive to prompt another murder: 10 million dollars in cash for whoever graduated from Hope's Peak Academy. Celestia, wishing to achieve her dream of owning a large European castle with many male servants, saw the perfect opportunity to win the money and escape the school. From a young age, she had bet her life on gambling in order to win vast amounts of money that could help her achieve her dream, and while she was successful, the amount of money she earned wasn't enough. When the opportunity arose, she crafted her plan of action by kidnapping Alter Ego and hiding him in a locker. She then approached Hifumi, who had developed romantic feelings for the AI that Chihiro had made before his death and was also continuously in conflict with Kiyotaka Ishimaru over who deserved to spend time with him/her more. She explained to Hifumi that Kiyotaka had abused her physically and threatened her to steal Alter Ego, stating that he had taken obscene photos of her that he could use as blackmail. She further stated that in order to keep Alter Ego for himself, he was planning to murder Hifumi, too. Hifumi, believing the lie, became enraged with Kiyotaka, and was manipulated into helping Celestia with her plot to escape the school. Once Hifumi became convinced, the two began to conspire. Celestia and Hifumi tricked Yasuhiro Hagakure into coming to the Rec Room and were then able to force him unconscious with chloroform. Once unconscious, they put him into the Robo Justice suit, a large robotic model made of cardboard, which Hifumi had made in order to cover a person's face and body as Celestia had specified. Hifumi then positioned himself holding up Yasuhiro in the Robo Justice suit to look as though he was being attacked by Robo Justice. Celestia began taking pictures on a digital camera in order to prove this as fact and to lay suspicion on Yasuhiro.

Once Yasuhiro was of no further use, they shoved him into the Pool Room Locker to be discovered by the other students later.

The next phase of the plan was to murder Kiyotaka, who was lured to the equipment room through a fake note made by Celestia, explaining she may have discovered an exit to the school. Then, Hifumi, using the 4th of four "Justice Hammers" he made out of painted mallets from the Art Room, killed Kiyotaka with a fatal blow to his head, and left the 4th Justice Hammer at the scene of the crime. Hifumi and Celestia then both faked being attacked by Robo Justice with Justice Hammer 1 (in the Rec Room) and Justice Hammer 2 (in the library). Shortly after, Hifumi faked another attack with Justice Hammer 3 in the Nurse's Office, which resulted in his supposed "death". He was able to fake his death by covering himself in transfusion blood from the Nurse's office and laying on the floor. The other students presumed he was dead due to the body discovery announcement being sounded. However, this was caused by other members of the class discovering Kiyotaka's body at the same time. Celestia accompanied Asahina to the bathroom, which allowed Hifumi to sneak out of the Nurse's office due to the attention being drawn away from him, thus giving him time to move Kiyotaka's body to the Art Room with a dolly. The class, being notified that Hifumi had disappeared, left for the Nurse's office once again, which meant Hifumi could move freely around the 3rd floor. Once Hifumi had moved Kiyotaka's body, Celestia met with him in the Art Room to discuss their plan of action next. Celestia had convinced Hifumi that she was planning to kill someone of her own in order to remove suspicion from him - however, this was yet another lie, and their meeting in the Art Room ended in Hifumi's death. As he was celebrating his success, Celestia attacked him with a normal mallet from the Repository and left him for dead after giving him a blow to the head, joining the rest of her class.

Appearance: At the beginning of the Killing School Life in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Celestia appears to be a young high school-aged teenager, but due to the memory loss, she is two years older than she believed. Celestia stands at an average height but possesses a very skinny figure. She wears a white lace bonnet with one white ribbon on each side with a smaller ribbon tied at the bottom, and has black hair in two large twin-drill pigtails. In the anime, the pigtails are more drill-shaped and curved. However, these are clip-ons evidenced in the event of the girls bathing in Chapter 3, as she is seen without them. Strangely enough, they frazzle up when she's angry. She has pale skin, red eyes, and gold spherical earrings which have an image depicting the cross engraved into them with a red gem placed in the center in each and long black nails. Celestia wears a gothic lolita-style outfit, consisting of a white blouse with a long-point collar, a black jacket that includes white ribbon lacing down the sleeves, fastened by a simple white ribbon across her chest to reveal her red tie (consisting of a butterfly pattern layered on top of various spears with skulls attached to it) and a many-tiered skirt with white lace. Celestia wears knee-high stockings trimmed in ladder lace with a black ribbon on the opposite side of the other for each, dark red mary janes with a thick heel held on her feet by three grey buckles, a white lace headband, and a silver, Gunmetal plated ring (reminiscent of a Gunmetal Armour ring designed by Vivienne Westwood) layered in overlapping sections on her index finger.

Personality: As an experienced gambler, Celestia appears collected, cold, and cunning by nature. She possesses the ability to manipulate others to do her bidding and can lie with a perfectly straight face, this is shown when she is able to manipulate Hifumi to make her royal milk tea and further be her accomplice during Chapter 3. She is shown to be fairly intelligent, referencing several aspects of game theory such as Prisoner's Dilemma or Zero-Sum Game, and her manipulative and coercion skills are shown in Chapter 3, being able to deceive the majority of the students, including Byakuya up until the class trial. Her intelligence is also shown in previous cases in which she, alongside Kyoko, Byakuya, and Makoto are the ones to bring up crucial points and is also capable of keeping up with Byakuya and Kyoko's train of thought during the trials as well. Celestia is a very ambitious person, as she declared that she will do anything it takes to win and is ready to go as far as murdering someone or manipulating others in cold blood. She is extremely selfish and values her life over the lives of others, stating she has no problem sacrificing others in order to save herself. She also has a lot of pride, refusing to surrender no matter how far into a corner she's pushed, as long as the chance for victory remains. However, when confronted with complete defeat, Celestia preferred to surrender gracefully over dragging out the inevitable.

Celestia believes in adaptability to be the key to survival, rather than strength or intellect, and she acts upon this by setting up measures such as the voluntarily imposed night-time curfew to protect the other students, as well as herself, from potential killers during the Killing School Life. She often reminds others to obey the curfew and is often annoyed when people such as Byakuya Togami violate the curfew, showing her authoritative and commanding nature. After the death of Chihiro, she coldly remarks that people who disobey the rules pay the price. In reality, she was lying about having to adapt and more than anyone wanted to leave the school, showing how easy it is for her to hide her emotions. Celestia is shown to be relatively materialistic, with her life's dream being living a life of luxury and decadence in a European castle. Monokuma's third motive appealed to Celestia and caused her to put a murder plot into motion. She was also the only person unable to view Alter Ego as a person or friend, which ultimately contributed to her decision of seeking escape through graduation. Her mannerisms are strict, refined and her spoiled nature emphasizes this due to her aspiring to be like European royalty. She even has a habit of ranking people between Rank A and Rank F, with her not caring for anyone who is a D-rank and despising those who are F-rank. She despises her real self as she dislikes ordinary and common things and considers her real identity and name to be one of "a loser". Celestia speaks softly and smiles often in order to imitate Victorian mannerisms and etiquette as a lady. She even uses the extremely polite and formal Japanese pronoun watakushi (わたくし), emphasizing the typically polite and formal way in which she speaks to the others. However, her short-temperedness surfaces when something fails to go as well as she expects it to, such as when Hifumi fails to make her royal milk tea as she likes it.

Another example is during the third Class Trial when she's accused of being blackened, Celestia quickly lost her composure after being accused of murder. She shouted and denied accusations towards her with unusually rude mannerisms, often using vulgar language. In the English dub, her normal European accent also begins to falter as well.

To further keep up her Western masquerade, Celestia often does things such as using the Japanese transliteration of the English "gambler" (ギャンブラー), instead of the Japanese term "shōbushi" (勝負師) and claiming her parents are of European ancestry. As an expert at lying, Celestia claimed that she can even fool her own emotions, but this doesn't seem to be entirely the case. She appears to lack empathy and claims that she feels no guilt for the nefarious acts she committed in the gambling underworld, although like most things regarding her, the truth of this is in question. Despite her status as a consummate liar, before she was executed, she presented a smile, but Makoto was still able to recognize her fear within. Celestia has a habit of deceiving her own emotions and so even in defeat always keeps a constant poise. Talents and Abilities:At a young age, she became a gambler and won countless games, even ones at the stake of her own life, but was able to win regardless. She states during a game of King of Liars, she spilled tea on her favorite dress and she had to end the game quickly to take it to the cleaners. She once even managed to accumulate over ten million dollars. She also won a Shogi tournament despite not really knowing how to play the game. Though her poker-face helped, she claims that the secret to her success is the luck she was born with. She was renowned for managing to rob any who challenged her of all their money and she even won the "King of Liars" underground gambling tournament.She kept earning money for her main goal in life - to live out the rest of her days in luxury in a big fancy European castle with handsome male servants from all around the world dressed as vampires.

She was renowned for managing to rob any who challenged her of all their money, taking part in life-risking gambling underworld tournaments and having the ability to lie when faced with difficult matches. Celestia is able to lie with ease about her character, convincing those around her that her real name is “Celestia Ludenberg” while referencing various manga stories when it came to her gambling exploits. She is also able to lie about her line of descent, though seemingly originating from Japan she states to be of German and French background and was able to lie about her parents' associated ancestry. While Makoto suspected she was lying, she was very convincing when manipulating Hifumi into making her royal milk tea and murdering Kiyotaka, by lying that he had abused and threatened her to steal Alter Ego. Relationships: Grand Bois Chéri Ludenberg Grand Bois Chéri Ludenberg is Celestia's pet cat. She enjoyed his company and pampered him, and most likely she was planning on having him with her in her dream mansion. Grand Bois Chéri was also Celestia's Captive and closer to her than anyone else. This implies that she didn't care for any people, including possible blood family. Hifumi Yamada: Hifumi and Celestia's relationship consist primarily of her bossing him around and using him. A prime example of this is when Hifumi makes Celestia tea, only for her to dash the cup to the ground, claiming that she only drinks royal milk tea. This is later taken to greater extents as Celestia manipulates him into murdering Kiyotaka with the premise of escaping the academy alongside her, using a photograph of Alter Ego in Kiyotaka's room to provoke Hifumi's anger; however, she subsequently betrays him by murdering him in a similar fashion, then framing Yasuhiro.

Shortly after Celestia and Hifumi's deaths, the survivors found a picture of the two and Sayaka together. In it, Celestia seems to be angry with Hifumi, indicating that their relationship was the same during their time in high school. However, it seems to be of a more friendly and playful nature as Hifumi is amused by Celestia's reaction rather than afraid, while Sayaka laughs in the background. This is different from Hifumi's reactions to Celestia's yelling and manipulation during the Killing School Life and shows that they may have had a friendship while attending high school at Hope's Peak Academy. At some point during their school life, Celestia told all of her classmates (including Hifumi) her real name. During Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony's non-canon bonus mode, when Kokichi Oma lies to Celestia that Hifumi inflated himself and popped like a balloon, she barely reacts and only finds it inconvenient because he makes her tea. She knows Kokichi is just lying, but the situation likely reflects how little she truly cares about Hifumi beyond what he can provide her with. By the time of the bonus mode's sequel, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, she appears to have slightly warmed up to Hifumi personally, but still makes a point of saying she won't allow him in her castle unless he were to die and reincarnate into a handsome vampire. Makoto Naegi: Makoto is the only person in the class who isn't fully convinced by Celestia's lying, not believing her name or ancestry to be real. Celestia seemed to be somewhat fond of Makoto and was curious to see if his luck as the Ultimate Lucky Student could beat her own luck as the Ultimate Gambler. This however did not stop her from engaging and insulting him when she was challenged.

She may have been fonder of Makoto than she let on, however, as during the third trial, while she was having a breakdown after being suspected of being the killer, she did show a moment of hesitation when he pleaded with her to just tell them what actually happened.

In her personal ranking, Celestia initially ranks Makoto with a D-rank, which is the same as her other classmates and most other people. During their Free Time Events together, Celestia was friendly and polite (barring the occasional insult) with Makoto. She warmed up to him as a friend and opened up a little about her childhood, stating she originated from Japan and liked the food gyoza, something which Makoto was more inclined to believe. At the end of her Free Time Events, Celestia promoted Makoto to C-rank and told him he was eligible to be her personal servant, her "knight". She stated that no one has ever reached a B-rank, let alone A-rank and stated that if Makoto did his best as a knight, then becoming the first ever B-rank could be possible for him. She also stated that she felt that Makoto might have the potential for A-rank. Makoto stated he would think about it, at which Celestia became vexed, likely wanting him to agree right then and there. While Makoto considers Celestia a friend, he is intimidated by her luck and is afraid of her deceptive personality. He also doesn't know whether to believe if someone were of F-Rank that Celestia would have them personally killed, given her hatred of uninteresting people. In School Mode, if the player has Makoto max out his affection points with Celestia, she will tell Makoto that he is to be promoted to B-rank should he do his best working with her to achieve her dream outside of Hope's Peak Academy.

Yasuhiro Hagakure: During the Killing School Life, Celestia planned to frame Yasuhiro in order to escape the school. The reason why is because Yasuhiro was the most "stupid" student in Celestia's mind, stating she pitied Yasuhiro's parents for having to put up with a son such as him. She also hates his first name, as it is the same as her truthful last name: a name she considers befitting of a loser. It is likely Yasuhiro, in Celestia's mind, was ranked lower than D-Rank as she was so willing to condemn him to murder with no remorse. However, while clearly seeing him as insignificant to her and her own dreams, when Celestia stated she wanted to be reincarnated as "Marie Antoinette", Yasuhiro comically remarked that she would only die again, causing Celestia to laugh for her final words. While she may have still disliked Yasuhiro, it is possible she may have thought him less insignificant if she had taken the time to get to know him. Kiyotaka Ishimaru: During the Killing School Life, Celestia had a plan to manipulate Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka since she saw him and Hifumi fighting over Alter Ego and saw their negative feelings for each other as an opportunity for her to escape. Celestia lied to Hifumi that Kiyotaka stole Alter Ego and also lied about how Kiyotaka abused and threatened her. These largely shocking accusations show that Celestia and Kiyotaka had no friendship as she easily manipulated Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka and showed no remorse for his death. She put her own dreams above Kiyotaka's own life, showing that he was not impactful on her as a person in any sort of way.